BENJAMIN DAMAGE
In Heliosphere, Benjamin Damage has produced a powerful realisation of his insatiable ambition.
It’s not so long ago that the successful ‘dance music album’ was a hugely elusive thing. Time and time again, producers would believe their ability to produce excellent 12”s would translate seamlessly into a full-length collection.
Yet over the last year or two, a palpable tidal shift has occurred. Artists such as Nicolar Jaar, John Talabot and Ital have established themselves as genuine artists, proving that a grip on the dancefloor can be transferred to making an ‘album’ worthy of the name. And for the second time in just over 12 months, Berlin-via-Swansea techno producer Benjamin Damage has done the same.
This time last year, his They!Live project alongside the fellow Swansea born, Berlin-based Doc Daneeka was bedding in, with a slew of favourable reviews piling up. A conscientious, listener-aware piece of work, it startled many with its assurance, patience and craft, as well as its genre-hybridising nature, taking techno and house framing, filtering it through their relative backgrounds in UK bass-leaning styles and coating the entire piece in an emotive shimmer.
Having found his way into the full-length game via collaboration, Damage wasted no time taking on the format alone. You need only glance at its cover – sporting his face from a range of angles faded into one – to see that Heliosphere is a profoundly personal record. Ben found the process of working alone a different experience altogether. “When you’re working alongside someone else, you don’t have that time to experiment with things which may or not work but are going to take hours”, he tells us, as we speak to him during a return to his Welsh hometown. “You have another person sitting there slowly getting bored. This record gave me a chance to get more involved in that way.”
This aspect of experimentation also relates to a long-standing passion of his: hardware. Always in possession of a head for the technical, the opportunity to delve further into this realm was key. “It meant a lot of time locked away alone making new sounds”, he recalls. “But it’s not all from hardware. Computers are getting to a stage now where you can do really interesting things. I think people have really managed to capture the essence of hardware, although you still have to work to earn the best sounds.
“But it always helps to have physical things to work with”, he continues. “As much as anything, it helps you to understand how these sounds are made.” He fondly remembers one particular piece of kit. “I’ve got this one massive analogue synth that the label very kindly sent over from the repair shop, this pretty crazy homemade synth that my grandfather built in the 70s.” He smiles. “These things, they might get you to the same place, but you’ve arrived in that place in your own way, and it gives you a completely new appreciation.”
That Heliosphere forms such a stunning, cohesive whole is, in many ways, a reflection of what Ben refers to as ‘obsession’. When asked whether the album is about him as an individual, or about his attitude to music, he’s quick to point out that the two are inseparable. “Well, they’re entwined, aren’t they? My personality and my music are the same thing. It’s an obsession.”
This became the defining factor of the recording. “The process is a little hazy”, he relays, “but those last few weeks, every waking moment was spent in the studio. I was completely obsessed, thinking of nothing other than this music. But when you’re making an album, that level of speed and dedication has to be a good thing; that headspace becomes a theme and creates this running thread through each track.”
A further theme is that of space travel and astronomy. The title itself refers to an area of space governed by the sun, a bubble containing our solar system and solar winds. “It’s always been a big interest of mine” Ben reveals. “During the making of the album, I began reading stories about the Voyager programme. That got me thinking about where those probes were going.” Its influence is certainly felt in some of the album’s more stratospheric scapes, where grandiose themes are realised in sheets of crackling atmospherics, industrial rhythms and capacious reverb. Laika, the album’s dense and oppressive opening, takes its name from the canine cosmonaut who became the first animal launched into orbit aboard the Sputnik 2 in 1957. “Man, I feel sorry for that poor little dog”, he says.
Despite its linear, progressive quality, Heliosphere also hits a potent range of extremes – its comparisons to such diverse artists as Plaid, Jeff Mills and Boards of Canada reaffirm that. The relatively tranquil troughs of the shuffling, eerie Spirals, or the eked-out ambience and subtle whispers of closer Heliopause are tracks which doubtless benefit from a late-night walk and a decent pair of headphones. And the album hits roaring peaks in the form of big-room assault Swarm and, most fiercely unrelenting of all, Delirium Tremens (“Yeah, that’s a pretty hard one” Ben smiles knowingly. “I love playing that out.”) It’s in these latter, more driving moments where the techno provenance of his chosen hometown becomes most apparent.
While in its nature, They!Live was a merging of attitudes and influences, Benjamin Damage’s solo work seems more accepting of its categorisation as techno, albeit in the broadest terms. The aforementioned are examples of the genre in its purest form, fixing their gaze on a set point and bludgeoning their way through all comers; other tracks meander, go around the houses, picking up nuances en route. Ben is conscious of the Berlin factor. “When you live in Berlin, you are just surrounded by techno”, he states. “It’s always in the background, people are constantly playing it to you: you absorb it from the atmosphere.”
He was originally drawn to the city from his previous home of London by the offer to create They!Live in the studios of none other than Modeselektor. The notorious techno giants were first struck by his productions thanks to 2010 single Deeper as part of Venom & Damage, an irresistible slab of classic house keys and syncopated rhythms which became a staple of their set. This led to an affiliation with the duo’s 50 Weapons label which has since served him exceptionally well, releasing the Creeper/Infamous 12” alongside Doc Daneeka, as well as They!Live, and now Heliosphere. Damage was also chosen to compile 50 Weapons’ Best Of 2012 compilation, and has accompanied Modeselektor on numerous bills around Europe. Damage is quick to acknowledge their impact both professionally and creatively. “The best thing they taught me was just to be yourself and not worry about what’s going on around you, to experiment. If you do what you like, there’s a good chance someone else will like it. If you second guess what people might like, it’s not going to sound genuine. Don’t worry what anyone thinks.” Apart from Modeselektor themselves, presumably? Ben laughs. “Of course! They never said anything too directed, but at the same time they’re quick to say they won’t put it out whatever, they can be pretty blunt. Gernot [Bronsert] said to me ‘I don’t put shit records out. If it’s not good, it’s not coming out.’”
That he has become such a strong representative of the Berlin-based label is a huge show of confidence. There’s a sense of full-circle that the likes of him and Addison Groove will be representing the imprint to a London crowd at the forthcoming Ostgut Ton x 50 Weapons night in London, a sense of acceptance. Featuring on a bill including Shed and Marcel Fengler as well as a special appearance from Robert Hood has Damage working ferociously to complete his live set to the highest standard. The capacity to play live is something that he feels strongly about. “You can’t be a one man band, but the way I do it is to have sections lined up with a controller so you can structure a track on the fly, if something’s going well you can extend it and change it and puts filters on, it really gives you freedom to react to a crowd.” It’s also a reflection of Heliosphere’s creation. “Some of the tracks on the album were structured like that, bits set up in one long loop and recorded live. I’m not very patient”, he says, “moving blocks around just doesn’t feel very musical, it doesn’t feel like me. It’s a lot of effort, but it’s worth it.”
And like that, we’re back to the obsessive nature in everything Benjamin Damage does. The determination, the dedication, the nights spent alone. But it’s been worth it. With its eyes set skyward, Heliosphere is the pay off.
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Heliosphere is available now via 50 Weapons. Benjamin Damage premieres his live show at fabric, Saturday 17 May.
Words: Geraint Davies
Photo: Celyn Smyth
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